Adagio for Twelve Fingers
by Esther Kirkland
Summary: Dipper wakes to hear a strange noise in the Shack. Following the sound leads to a revelation. (Based on/inspired by a tumblr post, quoted in the chapter notes.)


Based on this tumblr post by poinsixer

"i just love the headcanon that Stanford can play the piano really well  
like i can imagine that there's a piano somewhere in the shack that hasnt been played for years but one morning the twins and Stan wake up because they hear this being played from somewhere within the shack  
and the three of them go and find the room where the piano is. its been covered with a tarp, untouched this whole time so theyre just sort of confused  
so they go in there and see Ford playing the piano beautifully and he doesnt notice until he finishes and turns around and he sees them there  
then he just gets super embarrassed because ach attention  
the twins clap and stan just sort of stands there because he hasnt heard his brother play piano in over 40 years and theres probably tears just…..  
ajsdkfdjskfjf  
ford plays the piano"

The post included a link to a piano version of Tchaikovski's Swan Lake, but when I wrote this I was more inspired by David Lanz's "Christofori's Dream" which you can find on Youtube. I highly recommend listening to it as you read - it's a beautiful piece.

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It was a series of fluttering high notes that woke Dipper.

He opened his eyes – scratchy from lack of sleep, he'd been awake and tossing until two – and squinted up at the peaked attic ceiling.

The sound came again, and he sat up, his bed creaking. It sounded like… Piano?

He slipped out of bed and stumbled blearily across the room, rubbing his eyes with the back of his wrist. When he pulled the door open he could hear it more clearly: a light, rippling music, faint as dust motes in the morning air.

Definitely piano.

Dipper listened, but he couldn't hear anything else in the Shack. No grunts from Waddles (or Grunkle Stan for that matter) or dishes banging in the kitchen or voices raised in conversation… He glanced at the hall clock and realized how early it was – but Mabel's bed was already empty, so at least someone had to be up.

And apparently playing the piano.

He crept down the stairs, careful to avoid the ones that squeaked the loudest. The music was minor key and…not really sad, so much as it was thoughtful and pensive. It tugged him through the Shack, following the strains down the hallway and into a back room Stan used for storage. The door stood ajar.

He peered through the crack and froze, mouth open in an 'o' of surprise.

Ford sat at an old piano, the dust cloth that had covered it abandoned on the wooden floor. His back was to the door, and he wasn't wearing his coat. He looked oddly vulnerable as his fingers trailed over the cracked piano keys.

He played a scale up the keyboard: one handed, almost absently. Dipper couldn't see his grunkle's face, but there was a looseness to the way the older man moved that he'd never seen before. Ford looked almost… relaxed.

Major key up…minor down. A set of chords. Half an arpeggio.

It wasn't really _music_ , not a composed piece. It was more as though Ford was trying to remember what it felt like, trying to recall how fingers that were more used to weapons could coax music from ivory keys.

Dipper crouched down, curious but not wanting to be spotted.

Ford pulled his left hand away from the piano and looked at it, bending the fingers slightly in introspection. He sighed, and laid the hand on the silent keys.

He sat that way for a long time, silent and staring at the black-and-white piano in the dim light of the storage room. Around him, boxes of unused and forgotten junk created a labyrinth of shadows, their edges worn by ages of disuse and neglect. Ford's dark turtleneck blended in to the gloom, with the only real spots of light the glints of sunlight through a half-covered window.

Dipper had just about given up, figuring he should move before Ford decided to leave and saw him – when Ford's fingers flexed on the keyboard.

Three notes, ascending minor tones.

Dipper froze. He didn't dare move.

Ford paused, as if unsure, and slowly repeated the sequence.

Then another three notes.

Then another three. The right hand joined the left, and picked out a higher series of notes in counterpoint.

Slowly, a melody formed. Ford's head dipped slowly in time with the haunting tune – minor key and wistful, like snow falling in a black-and-white photo. The two parts twisted and twined through the dusty air, simple and intricate at the same time, like Irish lace.

Dipper moved to get a better view – and bumped into someone standing behind him. He jumped, just barely managing to keep a rather unmanly squeak from escaping his lips – but it was only Mabel. Her eyes were wide, and she pointed at the door.

 _Ford?_ She mouthed.

Dipper nodded, scooting over so his twin could see too. They crouched in front of the half-open door, not daring to make a sound that might let Ford know they were there. Because, Dipper was absolutely certain, if their great-uncle knew they were listening, the music would stop.

He didn't want it to stop.

Inside the dark room, Ford's hands were flying across the piano keys, scales and chords twirling out like ribbons of mist. One small window above his head let in a beam of morning sunshine, golden in the gloom. It fell across the keys and Ford's hands, illuminating a pillar of dust motes that eddied and danced over his head.

Mabel's hand crept into Dipper's, and he squeezed it. Everything had been so crazy lately – ever since Grunkle Ford had stepped out of the portal, really. He used to talk about everything with his twin, but in the last few weeks… Dipper pushed the thought aside and let the music wash over him, the melody swirling around his heart and down his arm like frost, wrapping delicate ties around his and Mabel's clasped hands.

There was a soft rustle behind them, and the twin's heads swiveled in guilty surprise. Behind them in the hallway, Grunkle Stan stood in his bathrobe, his eyes blurry with early-morning moisture. Or possibly emotion. But probably early morning blurriness.

He laid a finger over his lips and motioned for them to turn back to the door, then stood over their shoulders and listened along, a pensive look on his gruff face.

Inside the room, Ford's piano music grew louder, marching up a series of chords like the sun rising over misty forest treetops. The music swelled and filled the Shack: sweet and heavy and golden, tipped with dazzling silver notes that danced above the melody like fireflies over the lake.

Ford's head dipped, his shoulders rising and falling as his fingers swept over the keyboard, rippling up and down the scales the way water ripples over smooth brown rocks in a creek bed. Under the caress of his hands, the old piano sang like it hadn't in… well, in probably thirty years. Or more. It didn't seem to matter that it was a little bit out of tune, or that the sustaining pedal creaked every time Ford's foot depressed it, or that the G below middle-C clacked when it was played.

The music Ford coaxed from the long-forgotten instrument was beautiful.

Dipper heard a soft sniff behind him and looked up at Grunkle Stan. Those _were_ tears in the older man's eyes. Dipper started to raise his eyebrow, but stopped when Mabel squeezed his hand again.

She wasn't looking at him, still enraptured by the music pouring from Ford's hands, but a pang went through Dipper. He didn't know the whole of Stan and Ford's stories, but they were twins too. If he ever lost his sister, he would be a wreck. He couldn't imagine what it must be like for Stan to finally have his brother home – even if he wasn't quite the Ford that Stan remembered. The song spinning through the dust-spangled air must hold so many more memories and regrets than Dipper could fathom.

Inside the darkened room, Ford's song was fading away, becoming quieter and softer as the notes slowed. Each note was a light in the gloom, a fading beacon that paled and diminished until all that was left was the silence of a snow-blanketed midnight, lonely under the dust-mote stars.

For a long moment, as the last note ghosted through the air, Ford sat perfectly straight and still at the piano, his hands holding their position on the keys as if the instrument was an animal that he had just tamed.

Then his shoulders relaxed and he let out a soft little chuckle, running a finger through the dust on the top of the piano.

Dipper glanced at Mabel, and she met his gaze. He jerked his head down the hall.

 _We should go_ , he mouthed. She nodded, and Dipper stood. He took one step toward the kitchen when—

The floorboard – betrayer! – groaned under his feet.

Ford whipped around, hand going to his hip for a sidearm that wasn't there. "Dipper!" he exclaimed.

Dipper grimaced and turned. "Heh – hey, Great-Uncle Ford. Um. I was just – I was just going—"

But Ford had caught sight of Mabel and Stan as well.

"How long have you all been standing there?" he demanded, standing up from the piano bench and clenching his arms behind his back.

"Long enough," Stan said. He cleared his throat, obviously trying to hide the emotion Dipper had seen. "Ahem. Glad to know those years of you bangin' around 'practicing' finally paid off."

Ford's face was red, the tips of his ears fiery with embarrassment. Dipper was humiliated, and guilt churned in his stomach. "I'm sorry, Great-Uncle Ford," he began. "I heard the music and just came to listen and—"

"Grunkle Ford that was fan _tas_ tic," Mabel exclaimed. Releasing Dipper's hand, she raced into the room and hugged Ford tightly around the waist. "It was like magic."

Ford awkwardly patted her shoulder. "It's not magic," he said gruffly. "It's practice." Then, his voice lightening a bit. "Well – and having six fingers on each hand helps a bit too."

He waggled said fingers above Mabel's head, and the guilty feeling in Dipper's gut eased a bit.

"So… you don't mind that we listened?" he ventured.

Ford sighed, and shrugged. "I guess I wasn't thinking," he admitted. "It's a small house. If I'd have thought about it, I would have realized you would hear me. You just startled me is all."

Grunkle Stan hemmed in his throat. "Well. Ah...there's breakfast in the kitchen if anyone wants it. Eggs and some kind of muffin…biscuit…thing. From a can. From Soos. So maybe don't eat it. But it's there."

He spun on his heel and stalked off down the hall.

Mabel and Dipper looked at Ford. "You coming?" Dipper asked.

Ford looked down at the piano's abandoned dustcloth at his feet. "I suppose I will," he said. Bending down, he picked up the cloth and swept it back over the piano.

"You're not going to stop playing, are you?" Mabel demanded.

He smiled at her – the most honest smile Dipper had seen on his uncle's hardened face. "Of course not. But this old thing needs a professional tune-up before I mess with it anymore. And I may be a genius, but I know next to nothing about tuning a piano. I'll call someone this afternoon."

He followed her out into the hall, and the three of them headed to the kitchen, and breakfast.

"So where did you learn that song?" Mabel asked.

"Well, that's an interesting story, actually," Ford said. "I was at a bar in Dimension X45, and there was a three-armed man with a cat…"


End file.
